


Tributary

by varooooom



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Survivor Guilt, Veterans Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:44:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2605688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/varooooom/pseuds/varooooom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are still battles that need fought. Sometimes Bucky needs reminding, and sometimes he finds it in unexpected places.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tributary

**Author's Note:**

> This one was a little hard to write, cos I wanted to focus on the difficulties of trying to learn how to live a normal life after coming out of a life-long war, which is always tricky when you're dealing with Bucky and all that his war entails. I mostly just had the idea of some WWII vets pulling a grandfatherly "bro, do your thing" and then it all kind of spiralled out of control from there. Idk.
> 
> My thanks go out to our troops and the soldiers all across the globe that fight for their countries. I wish all the best and safe returns to these real world heroes. ♥

It's Sam's idea to visit Arlington around closing, when there'll still be a crowd for cover but it'll be thinning out with the passing sunlight. Steve wants to go, even if he won't say as much to keep the pressure off his back, but he - he wants to go too, maybe. He remembers the first Memorial Day held there, too young to understand the steel in his father's eyes but respectful of the way he stopped his shoulders from shaking when he hugged Steve's ma and said ' _He'd be proud'a you, Sarah, proud'a you both._ ' He remembers bodies wrapped in bloodied sheets, their names lost to time and - and everything else, but the sounds of laughter and shouting and gunfire still ring clear, still remind him that they were his friends, his men, soldiers that died at his side. He remembers wondering if he would wind up buried there by the end of his service, if Becca and his ma would fight to see his name written on that field when that was all they had left of him.

But he ain't dead yet, and war's not over, never will be. Veterans Day seems the right time for it, and - this would've been important to James Buchanan Barnes.

It's important to him too. He doesn't know why. But he wants to go.

It isn't as cold as Sam ( jokingly ) makes it out to be, but he still wears one of Steve's loose hoodies, the nice leather bomber that Pepper gave him for a birthday he didn't even know to celebrate, and a pair of gloves to hide his hands. When he's staring too long at himself in the mirror, unsettled as ever by his own appearance, Steve comes up behind him with the same sad puppy eyes he always has when he thinks he's putting him up to something he isn't ready for. It's the last touch he needs to finish the guise, so he turns to kiss him once, an easy distraction while he steals Steve's cap and pulls it onto his own head, then abandons Captain Jerkass to his baffled gaping.

The ride there is nice, calming. Colonel James Rhodes decided to come out with them, and between him and Pepper giving him critical glances, even Stark manages to behave himself. ( There's a tension in Stark's shoulders that either no one else notices or they've mutually agreed not to observe too closely, but he's noticed the way Tony's face pinches when he gets too close to soldiers in mourning. He isn't as flippant as he likes to pretend. ) Nat and Barton stay with the car when they pull up to the cemetery, the former claiming she's more comfortable with paying her respects from afar and the latter claiming he wore the wrong shoes for walking around headstones all day; no one questions the way they maintain one point of contact between her folded arms and his hands in his pockets, guarding each other from the things they won't say.

Stark, Rhodes, and Pepper break off to talk to some General or another, which leaves him to following Sam and Steve as they wander aimlessly through the field. ( They very explicitly avoid the crowd around the tomb erected for Captain America in 1945, still standing now as a symbol and threat both; he doesn't know if he can ever let Steve's body be buried there. ) It's hard not to feel unnerved by the neat lines of white grave markers, row after row after row of men and women that are still dying everyday for something bigger than all of them. Families stand before them, some crying, some staring in eerie silence, many looking like they wish they could trade places. Children that are too young and too naive to understand play on their phones or chew gum or fidget petulantly against their mother's chastising them for sitting on the lawn next to someone's grave. 

It's so ... mechanical. Simple in the way the gears keep turning, same as ever, same as it always will be. A small curl of bitterness grows in his stomach and he has to look to the sky, away from what he's trying very hard not to see as the graveyard of pawns on someone else's chessboard.

That much, at least, is a welcome familiarity. James Barnes struggled with the same cynicism towards the end of his time, jaded and hurt and wondering if the ends would justify their fucked up means. He's different now, in a million different ways, and he has no goddamn clue what piece he is on the board anymore, but he's been played for seventy years. Today, he's a free man, no one's toy soldier. But he's standing in a graveyard of people that died for something they believed in and he's never felt more lost.

Why did he want to come here?

The answer doesn't come for a long while. They walk for the better part of half an hour, Sam and Steve a few paces ahead; he makes sure to meet Steve's gaze every time he glances worryingly behind him. He's okay, if a little bit anxious. No need to call in the Guard. His upset settles under his skin and he has no clue what to do with it until they come upon two men in their dress blues, elderly in the way he and Steve ought to be if they weren't running on science and magic and five Ensures a day. Steve still has his uniform tucked away somewhere, recreated for him when he was pulled off of the ice and shoved in front of the masses as the hero returned. His was hanging in a museum display, but it conveniently found itself in a burning trash can some three weeks after DC. Papers blamed teenaged hoodlums and good ol' fashioned vandalism. He calls it laying to rest an old ghost and the idea that those bars belonged to anyone worthy of wearing them.

Still. Part of him aches to see them, wizened and withered and wearing the uniform proudly. They're vets from their time and their War, that much is obvious, but he doesn't think Sergeant Barnes knew them, for all that it sometimes felt like the entirety of New York wound up overseas with him. The entire country got swept up into the world's mess, and so few of them remain. To see two of them now, standing above the graves of their allies and friends - it _aches_.

He moves without really thinking about it, heart pounding in his chest, painfully aware of the two sets of eyes on the back of his head as they follow him. The men turn to face him when he murmurs a half-hearted "'scuse me, sirs?" Their eyes are tired, worn down by age and experience both, yet they burn with the life he's still trying to learn how to fight for. He inhales deeply past the heavy sinking feeling in his gut, "I just. I wanted to thank you, for your service."

It's - stupid, foolish, and he immediately ducks his head like a child under reprimand. A softly amused huff comes from behind him, irritation and embarrassment pushing him into glaring back to where Steve is looking past him proudly. He follows his gaze and finds the old dogs smiling fondly at him - fond, but sad, too, in the way they always do in the silence after a moment too close to a painful truth. It surprises him, makes him feel like he's twelve years old and listening to President Hoover's voice make his father cry, wishing he could understand.

But this holiday is for the living just as much as the dead. One of the men gives them a once over before saying gruffly, "You boys all served your time too, didn'cha?"

He tugs his sleeve subconsciously over his left glove as Sam nods his head, "Yes, sir. We're, uh. Mostly retired."

The other one laughs, a rough wheezing sound that almost hurts just hearing. "Ain't that the way of it. Might not be in uniform now, but you got the look about you. It's hard to shake it out of your bones."

They don't need to clarify ' _it_ ', too familiar are they all with the way war stays with you. He swallows hard and feels the urge to run burning the soles of his feet the longer they stand still. It's made all the more difficult when they invite the three of them to ' _come stand with two kooky old vets for a while, why don't you_?', and it could never cross his mind to deny them this. They stand in a row, Sam and Steve standing buffer between him and the men that set his heart racing like nothing else in the past few months. He doesn't understand it. He's been doing - better, if not good, so it doesn't make sense why _this_ is getting to him _now_.

Less than ten minutes into standing vigil with two strangers so painfully familiar in all the worst ways, it starts to make sense. The graves, the mourners, the blue skies and white clouds and thousands of names that will only ever be uttered as a memory. A sudden grief washes over him, and for the very first time in the last year and a half since his return to humanity, he cries. Unbidden, sure as fuck _unwelcome_ ; his cheeks burn and his heart aches and tears carve blistering paths down the curves of his face. He wants to hide away someplace dark and quiet, to tuck his shame and guilt into the corners of his mind where no one else has to see it, but they're here. They're alive, after everything, _everything_ they've been through. The good things he fought for and the bad things he's done, the nightmares, the torture, the blood of soldiers and civilians and everyone inbetween that stains his hands now - it all hangs heavy on his shoulders as he stares out at the rows of men and women, _good_ men and women, who were laid to rest in peace.

They're still here. So much good has left this world and they're still here. 

The Potomac River is just over the way, and he can see Steve's crumpled body sinking into its depths, can feel the weight of Steve's life as he dragged it back to the surface, both of them broken and battered and so terribly close to shutting down. But they're alive because of it, after all the aches and bruises, the nights spent terrified and alone even wrapped around each other. He cries, overwhelmed by the simple weight of _living_ , and no one pays them any mind when Steve tugs him into his arms. His fingers tangle into Steve's coat, letting his cap fall away so he can press his face miserably into Steve's shoulder, and he shakes, sobs, lets it all consume him for just one minute. Steve stays blissfully silent and keeps one arm wrapped around his lower back, the other combing through his hair, his lips pressed to the top of his head.

Time escapes him between his public breakdown and resurfacing from the safety of Steve's arms, but when he finally pulls back to find Steve smiling faintly down at him, the Sun is setting and people are starting to leave the grounds. He glances over to the two vets - and realizes too late that his face is exposed, red and tear-stained as it may be. The inappropriate closeness might be easy to disregard under the circumstances, but the face of an old soldier believed to be long dead —

The first pushes his finger against his nose and the second grins, stretches, and groans at the loud crack of his joints that follows. "Say now, I don't suppose you _strapping young lads_ can walk a pair of old men to their car? Our legs just ain't what they used to be," he says cheerily, not waiting for answer before coming 'round the line of them to loop an arm through his right. He startles, alarmed, but Steve only laughs and asks them to lead the way like the good little asshole he is. His entire body stays tense for the entirety of the walk, the pair of them falling behind the other three, for no reason other than pure intent on his new companion's behalf. Chances are, the both of 'em could run laps around most of the kids dragging ass on the way back to their parents' car.

"You listen to me now, sonny," he says quietly, privately, just for the both of them to hear. Steve glances back at them and he shoots him a confused frown, but the soldier stops their walking to look him dead on, cementing his attention. "Back in our day, we saw a lotta things most folks would call unbelievable if they hadn't seen it with their own eyes, things my grandkids call my 'crazy war stories'.' But - way the world is these days, crazy ain't so hard to believe anymore."

He gives him a meaningful look that makes him want to pull away and have Steve call up Maria Hill for damage control while he crashes at one of his safe houses for a few months, but the look is just a look and there's such a despairing honesty in the man's eyes. It's hard to look away.

"You two, and your pal over there, too - you done good by the world, best we could do with what was given to us. Whatever else happened, whatever else you seen or done," his grip tightens on his arm, what might've been painful if this situation were any semblance of normal, which only makes it that much more important to hear, "you learn to live with it. You'll hate it, and you'll hate yourself for it, wondering how you could dare, what kinda monster it makes you for carryin' on after the things you've done when a whole lotta other men, better men, are rotting in the ground."

He swallows again, gaze wandering for just a moment to the countless graves behind them, but the man squeezes his arm again and draws him back carefully, gently but firmly. It's a wonder, how everyone else seems so much better at taking care of him than he is, but maybe that's why he's here, why he needed this. To remember what it is to keep living. The old man smiles warmly, and he unintentionally finds himself returning it.

"It's gonna hurt like a bitch, but you'll get there. You'll learn, and one'a these days, you'll wake up and realize you're okay. Maybe not good, maybe not perfect, but okay. And you'll keep on living, 'cause our war might be over, Sergeant, but there's still a whole lotta good in this world to fight for." He nods his head over towards the parking lot, where Sam is helping the other veteran into a car and Steve is watching them curiously, arms folded over his too-broad chest. 

The ache in his chest eases, just a fraction, and he looks back to the kindly old man with a nod. "Yes, sir." A beat, and he adds faintly, "Thank you."

He laughs again, the same wheezing from before, and starts toddling off towards the car without any assistance. "What're you thankin' me for? I'm just a crazy old bat nearing my triple digits, can't even tell my left from my right most days. I won't remember a word'a this come tomorrow, I can promise you that, son."

It's a promise, a reassurance that they're safe and they're okay, and - and maybe, as he watches Steve's hands get swatted away from helping the man climb into the other side of the car, as Sam laughs and Natalia appears with her cell phone already recording the whole thing from where Pepper, Tony, Rhodey, and Barton are already packed into the car in varying degrees of amusement —

He knows they're alive. They'll keep on fighting new battles, and some days, it'll be too much for him to carry. But there are men at his back and his Captain's right in front of him ( pouting up a storm ). There's a body count behind him and the world keeps getting crazier with every passing day, but they're alive to keep fighting, and one day - one day, that'll be okay. They'll be okay.

One day.


End file.
